Monday, September 21, 2009

Exploring news by the Amish online

IT’S not easy being the emissary from the digital world in Amish country. For two weeks this summer, Jessica Best, a 22-year-old journalist from Wales, fell into that role as the intern at The Budget of Sugarcreek, Ohio, a weekly that is the largest newspaper serving the Amish.

Her self-assigned task, supported by a traveling scholarship from the Welsh Livery Guild, was to study The Budget’s transition to the Internet and the willingness of the Amish to accept that transition. It led, she said, to many a friendly, if awkward, conversation, some of which she chronicled in a blog written from Sugarcreek...